Time is running out for fishermen and women in the Northeast who fear their industry is being put at risk by the Biden administration’s renewable energy agenda.
“Ground fishermen, lobstermen, whatever you are, you’re under the microscope right now, and it just seems to be something coming at us from every direction,” New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) COO Dustin Delano said on “The Big Money Show” Monday.
“And with this offshore wind agenda out there to attempt to fight climate change,” he continued, “it’s almost like environmentalists and different folks are willing to destroy the environment to protect the environment.”
Two weeks ago, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), an agency within the Department of Interior, announced the finalization of what is known as a wind energy area (WEA), which is an area of the ocean that would allot for construction of enough wind turbines to produce 32 gigawatts (GW) of energy.
The agency boasted that, in support of the Biden administration’s goals for deploying 30 GW of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030 and 15 GW of floating offshore wind energy capacity by 2035, the Gulf of Maine WEA surpasses the current state goals for offshore wind energy in the Gulf of Maine, which is 10 GW for Massachusetts and 3 GW for Maine.
New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) COO Dustin Delano claimed the industry is getting hit “from every direction” by the Biden administration. (Fox News)
But a coalition of 17 fishing associations – including Delano’s – say the move is “the culmination of a rushed development process that is poorly informed on economic, scientific, environmental and cultural issues of paramount importance.”
“The pace has really stepped up to try to get as much done as possible under the current administration,” Delano said. “And this massive area is used by hundreds of fishermen across the Gulf of Maine, whether you’re from Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and even some of the states further south. So it’s incredibly problematic when you look at 2 million acres.”
Not only do the fishing associations claim that there are “serious questions” about the correlation between endangered whale deaths and wind farms, but the WEA’s project would permanently displace fleets in the prime groundfishing territory.
“They’re talking about these giant, 300-by-300-foot cement bases, with [a] 12, 13-hundred foot turbine that’s going to be on top of that with massive anchoring systems, with chains the size of a pickup bed,” Delano explained.
“So with every tide change and every wind change,” the COO added, “all of that chain is going to be scraping across the bottom and destroying everything in its path.”
In a statement to Fox News Digital, BOEM said that the final WEA establishes the boundaries to inform BOEM’s initial environmental assessment under NEPA on potential site characterization and assessment activities.
BOEM also noted that the WEA was finalized “after extensive engagement with lobster fishermen in fishing communities” and avoids certain restricted areas that the National Marine Fisheries Service identified.
“That’s part of why we formed the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association, because there were so many things being thrown at us,” Delano reflected. “And as fishermen from different types of fisheries, we really wanted to bring everyone together because these issues that we’re facing are larger than just one industry.”
